Review by Amazon.com

A rousing ensemble recording, A Todo Cuba Le Gusta features a band made up largely of
Cuban music elders. As a reflection of their collective experience playing multiple
percussion instruments and brightly lit trumpets, the Afro-Cuban All Stars churn with high
drama, even while playing music that's paced with extravagant patience. The time
signatures overlay and run against each other in a casual trot while the trumpets blare
with fat fullness. Add to that the impassioned group vocals and you've got a hard-to-beat
Cuban traditional music session. --Andrew Bartlett

Anyone with other dates in UK, please let us know at acw_AT_afrocubaweb.com [replace _AT_ with @]

The Bar at Buena Vista pays homage to the stars of the Buena Vista Social
Club via the music of legends like the late Compay Segundo and Ruben Gonzalez.
Co-founder of the Buena Vista Social Club, and this year's Grammy nominated
percussionist Carlos Gonzales will be accompanied by fellow Grammy nominee Luis
Frank on vocals alongside diva Barbara Ferrer Sanchez of Anakoana.

For many of the artists, age is no barrier to celebrating a passion for life
through music. Eighty-six-year-old Reynaldo Creagh weaves magic vocals for the
Vieja Trova Santiagera, and 78-year-old Maestro Rabalcalba is the legend on the
piano from the Afro-Cuban All Stars. - www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/582/582p26d.htm

2002

The US portion of the fall 2002 tour was cancelled due to the US government's war on
culture (see New Cuba to US Travel
Restrictions, 10/02). The Spring tour is happening as the delay
has given the new visa process, which takes 6 months, time to work.

The concert by the Afro-Cuban All Stars was on the verge of
becoming a lawless dance party even before a pregnant woman in a
black Lycra top climbed onstage and began to shimmy with the band.
But when she lifted her shirt and proudly flashed the world her
bulging belly, whatever inhibitions had kept this capacity crowd in
its seats on Saturday night were suddenly gone.

It was exhibition time. Bandleader Juan De Marcos issued a
one-word directive -- "Dance!" -- and before you could say
"Well, look who took salsa lessons," some 25 couples were
twirling on the stage at Lisner Auditorium. Hundreds more clogged
the aisles. It took a song change and 10 minutes to restore order.

The Afro-Cuban All Stars are based in Havana, and you can't watch
them unhinge an audience without pondering Castro-style communism
for at least a moment. Repressing a nation of millions for more than
40 years can't be simple, but repressing a nation that makes music
as liberating and spirited as the sons, mambos and cha-chas
of this 17-member jazz orchestra -- that must take hard work and a
twisted kind of genius.

Of course, political subtexts seem beside the point when the
Afro-Cuban All Stars are swinging, and they were swinging nearly
every moment of this show. This is the latest touring incarnation of
the band assembled by De Marcos, a singer and guitarist and the
mastermind of "The Buena Vista Social Club," the project
that first brought international acclaim to a collection of
long-retired Cuban jazz giants. The stars of that movie and its
soundtrack -- among them, Ibrahim Ferrer and Compay Segundo -- have
spun off to solo careers, so for this excursion De Marcos recruited
a new and (for the most part) younger batch of talent.

Judging from the music and reaction it won on Saturday night, the
Afro-Cuban franchise will be around for a long time. From the
opener, "Tanga," the group wed a Latin big-band sound to
styles that are relatively new, like funk, and others that are
classics updated for theoccasion (boleros and timbas). It's a little
bit Desi Arnaz, a little bit John Coltrane, with a touch of
Parliament and just enough 2003 in there to keep it from seeming
stuck in a golden age.

The only things truly retro were the suits. Cuba appears to be
the land that time forgot -- and with the exception of conga player
Adel Gonzalez Gomez, who dressed in the dark blue sport jacket and
red tie of a Federal Trade Commission staffer, the stage was awash
in colors that haven't been seen in public since that volcano ruined
Pompeii. The most striking belonged to the diminutive and graying
Ignacio Carrillo, one of the three rotating lead singers in the
band, who ambled onstage in a magenta suit and earned some standing
ovations before singing a note by grinning impishly and curtsying to
the crowd.

He, in turn, was upstaged by the dancing of Pedrito Calvo, the
former lead singer of a hugely popular Havana band called Los Van
Van. Wearing a brimmed white hat with a dark blue bandana hanging
out the back like a raccoon's tail, and looking as solidly built as
a linebacker, Calvo nuzzled a redhead in a black cocktail dress whom
he plucked out of the audience during one of his handful of
performances.

Calvo later yielded the stage to Luis Frank, a beefy and
smooth-toned vocalist who had the misfortune of taking the
microphone just when a young man in the audience got an epic case of
dance fever. The lad helped himself onstage and did a jig that so
thoroughly robbed the mildly irked Frank of the spotlight that he
finally shook this interloper's hand and shooed him off the stage.

Apparently, not a lot of shy people at this event.

There wasn't a weak link in the band. Pianist David Alfaro Garcia
shined on "Tribute to O'Farrill," while trombonist Juan
Carlos Marin Eloseguy scored sentimental points with a solo he took
during a song written for his wife to mark their third anniversary.
Gomez had the stage to himself before the band returned for an
encore, and he used it for a four-minute display of conga-pounding,
eliciting a reaction you see in World Cup soccer when a team scores.

Only De Marcos spoke English to the crowd, and it's safe to
assume that at best half of this strikingly diverse crowd spoke
Spanish. But the words don't matter much for a song like "Maria
Caracoles," a tune about a man begging a woman to stop dancing.
But she can't help herself.

And at Lisner, even those who understood those lyrics kept on
shaking, too.

Its a shame that weve been deprived of what Cuba has to offer
us musically from its people. This CD goes a long way to show us just how much we have
missed.

The classic Son, predecessor of mambo and todays salsa starts off this CD. The first
thing you hear that hits you like a ton of bricks is the brass sections pure big
band sound of the late 40s and early 50s. Whats appealing throughout
this CD and the others to follow is the strong brass, percussion and piano execution (real
piano). We get a hint of Mr. Rubén González who besides Chucho Valdes are two of the
greatest pianist alive. His playing is exquisite (more on Rubén later). The coro is
tightly harmonized and the Cha Cha never sounded so good.